Christmas Lore

 

One of the things I love most about Christmas (other than the decorations, the gifts, the food and the Birth of Jesus, of course) is learning about other families' holiday lore.  I'm fascinated by how other families celebrate, develop their traditions, etc.  In fact, our own family's 3 gifts from Santa rule "Good enough for Jesus" came from a friend's shared memory.  Today, my sister asked about my children and their thoughts about Santa, which prompted me to reflect on my own family of origin's notions about Christmas.  

Now, don't be mistaken, other than Christmas Eve spent with my dad's parents and relatives and Christmas Day spent with my mom's parents and relatives, there really seemed to be very little tradition in our household growing up.  

One strangely odd piece of lore however had to do with the stealth elves (i.e., Santa's helpers) who resided in our tree topper and came down to assist Santa when he arrived.  I have no earthly idea where that notion originated (too many episodes of I Dream of Jeannie?) or how we could somehow believe that even one Playmobile-sized elf could reside in there for 364 days (what did they eat for heaven's sake?) but, it is what we believed nonetheless.  

Yep, decorations, gifts, food, baby Jesus and a microscopic family of slave elves living in the tree topper, those are some of my favorite things about Christmas.